INVENTORY II

My last “Inventory” was a year ago. It’s time for round two, just to compare & contrast then to now.

This round is more “to the bone” and existential. I listen to Alan Watts and Ram Dass tapes almost daily now. And with what some might call “synchronicity,” I also run into lots of YouTube discussions, lectures, and experiences on the subject of death and dying. It would seem to be the time to address that subject – I guess.

I do meditation. And solitude (where one is told to “find oneself”) is something which there is no shortage of in retirement. In fact, I can literally count the days between actually speaking to a “live” human being. Which then forces me to focus my writing on what solitude renders, the subject of death or different manifestations of the death and “awakening.” I don’t mind this, because again, it just seems like a natural place to be right now, mentally and emotionally.

Then, I turn on the radio (or the phone rings) and a strong wave of cognitive dissonance arrives: “a conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously.” And I’m thrown back into the world, swimming with issues and problems which are the glue to “being here.” One cannot, should not, diminish them because they carry an important gravitas. To ignore them just buries you further into them. So I “take care of business” as much as I can if only stave it off for another day or two, just long enough to retreat back into what really matters – meditation and solitude. Then the word “retreat” becomes troublesome.

It’s like a wheel that just keeps circling around. But the wheel also arcs upwards just a little. It’s more like a helix which suggests that the churning and churning of old themes and patterns wear out. We see things differently each time around – new things inside old things that are flat and empty. Time moves on, and we move on.

A good example of this comes from the spiritual side itself. We hear words that inspire, until they don’t. They become empty. We just don’t hear them anymore. “Be in the here & now,” “Rejoice in the present.” “It’s all perfect,” etc. Pretty soon they’re just words spoken by people who don’t even hear them themselves. Those people of course reject this observation. But the proof is in their own body language. It just becomes noise that interferes with what’s really going on. In 1872 Flaubert noticed this and said, “Never have things of the spirit counted for so little. Never has hatred for everything great been so manifest, [even] disdain for Beauty.”

We change because we must. It’s a different river, but the same river. We look for some kind of compromise between the two, a middle-ground between the material and spiritual. At the same time we look for something more dramatic, a completely new and different river. But it’s never there, just the new inside the old which requires a different lens.

For myself personally, that different lens is the animal kingdom. It brings a new clarity for me. It lends meaning and purpose after a long dry spell of having neither one. It’s something that grabs my heart and soul and nurtures me.

Then, the phone rings again (or I turn on the radio) and even there I’m assaulted by the “downside” of this new meaning and purpose. It’s the bitter fruit surrounding the perfect and beautiful with the politics of suffering animals and animal rights. So then, again, the experience becomes one of vacillating between detachment and “the noise” of politics. The line between the two is never clear.

At this stage, after so many years of so many go-arounds, I can feel my soul beginning to change as well. There’ the sense of giving up. In other words, to simply not care anymore and refuse to engage in either “the noise” or the spiritual journey. I just don’t think about either one. I go into escape mode – workouts, movies, music, stories, animals, etc. Fantasies and small events which have nothing to do with politics or consciousness. I seek humor, levity, and the irrelevant.

I’m the classic old movie aficionado, a member of the old Casablanca tribe, who repeat lines verbatim from movies. Repeating lines is an effort to bring the scene into my living room, draw it out of the screen and bring the characters into my personal situation. I want them to live it with me, hoping that maybe they can guide and inspire me. – Which says volumes about trying to find a space fitted between the two worlds of reality and fantasy.

At day’s end, there’s nothing left, or very little left. So I watch another movie. The merry-go-round winds down, then stops. Solitude suggests that perhaps there’s a vacuum where there shouldn’t be one. I should perhaps be more “people-connected.” But that’s difficult for me. Meeting people has never been my forte. I can engage in conversations effortlessly with strangers and on many levels (when I manage to find a conversation). But that’s where it ends. Overtures on moving forward, into a friendship/relationship, never materialize. We just say goodbye.

Back in the day when I worked, the work environment took care of that problem. Human connections were natural because they were necessary. We formed natural bonds related to the work at hand. That vehicle is now gone. And it’s embarrassing to admit that I’ve even indulged in dating sites as a substitute to the workplace – a monumental mistake (they don’t work). Bonds don’t happen there, just politics.

So much for “escapism” – movies, music, and all the rest. The noise remains, but so does solitude, meditation, animals, and Alan Watts. So does the pendulum.

Through all this self-generated smoke, there seems to be a kind of marriage between Watts/Ram Dass and “the noise” after all. The two hemispheres are not as mutually exclusive as I thought. I’m beginning to see the material world differently, again because the old tapes are worn out and there’s nowhere else to go. It feels like a veil slowly lifting and passing through a thin membrane – not a portal so much, because portals are clearly marked and distinct.

Speaking of synchronicities, it was Dr. Watts who reminded me that it’s not a matter of “doing” anything anyway (about politics or “the noise”). Doing implies a self (ego) trying to transform itself, which is impossible. It’s like trying to transcend one’s own will. It’s also like Eubulides Paradox: Saying “I am a sinner” is false if it’s true, and true if it’s false. “One cannot make a statement about the statement he’s making. No one can think about the thought he’s having, or know the self that is knowing.” It’s also like trying to “bite your own teeth or kiss your own lips.” “The self becomes a liar, and nowhere more than when it says it is a liar…. The most noble efforts to be genuine are disingenuous” – etc.

Hence, it’s a matter of un-doing, or letting go of doing, and simply “letting in” the world. The will/self/ego steps out the way. It must be experiential while nothing claims to be having the experience. It’s a transference of identity (and the end to cognitive dissonance). It becomes the easiest and the most difficult thing in life one can do. It’s the ox sitting under the nose of the rider who is looking for his ox. – And I get it!

This is the key. But I’m still not ready for it. There’s too much will, to much ego, too much self-investment, too much suffering – too much “noise” in the way.

At least the material world is getting a kind of face-lift. It’s the same boat, but the chairs are re-arranged allowing a different scenery. The “ordinary” is becoming just a little more “extraordinary.” This is taking tremendous will power, and yet “will power” is the problem, the conundrum. To focus on un-focusing is a matter of not trying. Yet it’s also to see what Watts and Ram Dass saw around them. They saw themselves “looking back at themselves” through others’ eyes. They saw a “oneness” playing itself out in a kind of graceful dance.

Truth be told, I’m still “stuck,” sidetracked by waves of negativity and fear. I’m not ready to penetrate that more advanced membrane of seeing only a “Self.” There’s just too much suffering. In fact, fear and anger has me backsliding in the wrong direction. I’m lured into a need for vengeance. I feel myself actually wanting to “kill” those who abuse animals and children. Or, I just feel unspeakable pain for both animals and children. I’m nowhere near seeing “cosmic perfection” in that. My soul is too immersed. I even lose sleep over the thought of their suffering.

I wake up in a sweat sometimes, filled with rage. I want to “end” the perpetrators. My body convulses. At 3 AM “sleep” is over with. I get up, move around, and even yield to morning coffee. It’s morning anyway, for better or worse. My adrenaline is its own alarm.

And so…. juxtapose “that 3 AM moment” with transcendence and meditation? How do the two ever manage to even coexist? How can I be so completely in one state of mind, then in the other just a few hours later? It’s Jekyll & Hyde in the extreme. I feel like a jagged piece of glass in a room filled with fine silk. Sharp edges protrude from my body, and with one wrong move I’m ripping through the delicate fabric of a consciousness I’ve worked so hard to understand. – And then I “lose it” anyway and destroy the room.

Maybe the problem is again one of “trying” so hard, to achieve what can’t be achieved through trying. If the ego works so hard for the one extreme, it’s just as vulnerable to the other extreme, and that becomes my suffering.

There’s that fine line one walks between compassion/caring and the “dance” of perfection (and detachment). My ego screams back and rationalizes it as irresponsible complacency, avoidance, and even cowardice. “If I’m going to be in this damn world, then be in it!!”

There’s one consolation to all this. I recall Ram Dass once saying you’re not “whole” until you embrace “all seven chakras,,” not just your higher chakras. You must “burn them up,” he said: “Yes, I’m, Ram Dass. But I’m also Richard Alpert.” And when “Alpert” comes out to play, ”watch out,” he said. That gave me validation. Maybe the confusion over “where to be” isn’t that confusing after all. Maybe confusion is just a conditioned (mental) reflex. Maybe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be because it just happens to be where I am. Only the ego gets confused as it seeks out its own patterns.

Imagine yet another scenario. Experiencing timelessness, as in “outside” dimensional space (spacelessness). I think of D.E. Harding’s book “On Having No Head.” It’s like that. There’s just a kind of space (for the lack of another word) that can’t be described. Then the phone rings again. The phone is a symbol, an instrument that brings order to chaos. The bell rings and space creates time, time creates space. “Ptolemy” shows up creating a 360 degree circle, divided into 60 minutes, the minutes divided into 60 second minutes. Time and distance are now intertwined. Everything realigns and the universe is organized again. – Oh, the power of the telephone (cell-phone).

The world is reduced to time-space which is like the tail wagging the dog, the blind man mistaking the trunk for the elephant. And “the noise” still wins out. You have to answer the phone. – The jolt from one world to the other is the frisson of insanity every mental patient shares. They say, “See, I told you.” And they’re right.

Does journaling any of this actually “help” in healing from all this? I don’t know. It’s mental masturbation, “stale grist,” but also a ship’s rearranged furniture and a shifting view of what is. There are also chapters here that I never thought were chapters, just afterthoughts and footnotes. A few doors close, and a small window opens. There’s always a thin shard of light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

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